GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - The Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) recently directed a letter to Garden Route District Municipality (GRDM) Municipal Manager Monde Stratu to clarify the ambiguous reporting done on 15 June during a media briefing session. 

During the session, the AG tabled a report outlining the 2020/21 Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) audit outcomes of local government. Uncertainty over the AG's comments led to a discussion in council last week.

However, in a recent letter to GRDM, the AG stated, "The GRDM has achieved a clean audit outcome due to the adequacy of the action plans that were instituted to address prior year findings and we commend the municipality on this achievement." 

GRDM wanted to clarify that the statement by the Auditor-General during the tabling press conference, related to municipalities within the boundaries of the district and not to the GRDM itself. 

This explained a reference to auditees that had obtained a qualified and unqualified audit outcome. There was also a paragraph in the provincial overview of the general report that referred to the fact that the GRDM had not obtained a clean audit outcome in the previous year (2019-20), and therefore did not sustain its clean audit outcome from the year before that, unlike the other Western Cape district municipalities.

Municipal Manager Monde Stratu said the GRDM remains committed to ensuring that it has all preventative and detective controls in place to ensure that good governance continues to be embedded in its organisational culture for years to come. 

"The audit outcome was, therefore, a result of a concerted effort by all officials to ensure that good governance and sound financial management remain at the heart of what we do at the municipality," he said.

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